


Sick Day

by serafine



Category: DCU (Movies), Superman - All Media Types, Superman Returns (2006)
Genre: Fever, Gen, Kryptonite, Secret Identity Fail, Sickfic, Sickness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-16
Updated: 2010-05-16
Packaged: 2017-11-23 23:57:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/627953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serafine/pseuds/serafine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After accidentally ingesting trace amounts of Kryptonite, Clark becomes incredibly ill. Lois goes to check on him, thinking he has a mere 24-hour bug. But high fevers and delusional ramblings swiftly up the ante.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sick Day

Original Prompt: found [here](http://community.livejournal.com/het_idcrack/3079.html)  
Acknowledgements: Huge thanks to [](http://surreallis.livejournal.com/profile)[**surreallis**](http://surreallis.livejournal.com/)   for super fast beta and wonderful words of encouragement.  Written for [](http://het-idcrack.livejournal.com/profile)**het_idcrack** ,  
Work Dates: 4/1/10 – 5/16/10

-          -      -     -        -

 “Dr. Balen, do you have an idea yet of what exactly was taken?” Clark pushed his glasses up and peered around the room.

“Not a complete list. You think this is bad, they made a real mess of our storage room. It’s going to take weeks for the scrubbers to clean the air in here.”

There had indeed been a robbery here, and a messy one at that. There were knocked over shelves, drawers upside down on the floor, and sheetrock debris was everywhere. It did not appear that the thieves knew exactly what they were after. There was still a fine haze of dust in the air.

“What do you know at this point?” Clark asked.

“They took all of the lab created precious gems, of course, though any buyer worth his salt would be able to tell the difference in a heartbeat. We had been doing some experiments on the properties of some stones and meteorites we’d received. That’s one of the reasons it’s so dusty in here. There were several large containers of scrapings and shavings and those were opened up and dumped out. It’s going to take days to sort it all out, much less clean everything up.” He paused, wiping off his forehead with a handkerchief. “Well, Mr. Kent, I appreciate the concern, but why exactly does this interest a reporter?”

“I wanted to come and see what had been stolen, in case this is a part of something larger. I wouldn’t think that labs of this nature have to deal with this sort of thing very often.”

“You would be surprised.”

Dr. Balen opened the door for Clark and followed him through. “We can talk more in here if you have any other questions.”

There was a small break room, with three sets of tables and chairs. “Can I offer you a cup of coffee?”

“That would be great, thanks.”

Clark was so caught up in his notes that he did not notice the trickle of slightly iridescent dust drifting off the coat of the scientist, settling into the coffee as he carried it across the room.

-          -      -     -        -

Clark stumbled through his front door and somehow managed to get it closed behind him. The trip home had been a complete blur. He was sweating profusely and started tearing at his collar.   He’d been queasy all the way home.  _Something_ had made him sick. Incredibly, unbelievably sick. His stomach lurched alarmingly. He dropped everything he had in his hands and headed for the bathroom. Unfortunately, his aim was a little off and he crashed into the doorway at high speed, shaking the frame. He made it just in time to empty the contents of his stomach into the toilet. And apparently everything he had eaten for the past month. He wiped a shaky hand across his lips and rinsed his mouth out in the sink.

Looking up into the mirror, the world spun just a little.  _This is not good_.  _What could have done this? What did I eat today?_ He ran down the short list and couldn’t think of anything out of the ordinary.   Coffee, lunch, more coffee. Wait – the cookie. There had been a tray of cookies in the break room.   With thick, bright green icing. His stomach twisted at the thought.  _Surely not._   

He staggered into the living room to find the phone. Best call in now. If he felt like this tomorrow, there was no way he could show up for work.  

The next morning dawned bright and clear but for once Clark did not enjoy the sight of the rising sun. He had an awful night. Nothing he had eaten had stayed down. Not soup, not crackers, not even water.   He was curled up on the couch, swaddled in blankets, as cold as he had ever been.

-          -      -     -        -

Lois looked at the empty chair across from hers and then consulted the clock. 9:45 am. Clark was almost always here first thing in the morning. Jimmy wandered into her view. “Have you seen Clark?” 

“He’s out sick today. Said he wasn’t feeling well. Maybe he caught that bug that’s been going around?”

“Clark’s never that sick. He always comes in.”

Jimmy shrugged. “No one’s perfect, Miss Lane.”

Lois turned and snatched up the phone, typing in Clark’s number. It rang six times before he answered. “Hello?”

“Clark? You sound awful! What’s wrong with you?”

He struggled to keep his voice even and higher pitched. “Just feeling under the weather today, Lois.” He took in a breath and his lungs rattled alarmingly.

“Do you have any orange juice? You need to keep hydrated.”

“Um… I’m sure I do.” Standing had made the edges of his vision go dim. “Lois, I need to go. I’m sure I’ll see you tomorrow.” He hung up and let go of the phone as his legs buckled underneath him.

Lois sat there and stared at the handset for a moment. She had never heard Clark sound like that.   He had been so kind to Jason since he got back. Maybe she should go check on him during lunch…

-          -      -     -        -

Clark sat on the floor and shivered.   The cold had never affected him this way.   Was it winter? It must be winter.  Or maybe he was at the Fortress?  He lifted his head and looked up. There was a sunbeam, though it seemed to be spinning. Was he flying? Sunlight would make him feel better. It always did.   It took forever, but he managed to get across the room and curl up in the light, drawing the edges of his cloak around him.

Standing on the edge of the cliff, Clark could feel the cold wind whip past his face. His chest hurt – something sharp was digging at his insides. His lungs ached. And then he was falling, far, out of control, landing in the dark waves of the Atlantic and sinking so quickly. He could see Luthor standing high above, laughing. A gleaming bit of green clutched in his fist as he waved to Clark.

The cold gray water rapidly filled his nose, his lungs. His cloak was a heavy tangle around his throat, pulling him further into the icy depths. Clark couldn’t breathe, couldn’t find the surface, completely lost in the dark shadows of the wide ocean.

-          -      -     -        -

Lois listened carefully at the door of Clark’s apartment. No coughing, no TV noise. She knocked and waited. And waited. “Clark?” Another knock. She finally tried the doorknob. It was unlocked.  _Damn It, Smallville! This is NOT Kansas!_  Lois pushed open the door and let herself in. “Clark!” She turned and locked the door behind her. His briefcase and coat were on the floor in the foyer. “Clark?” She followed a trail of discarded clothing into the living room. This was not like him at all. 

She was shocked to see Clark lying in the middle of the living room floor completely wrapped in a blanket.   “Oh God, Clark?” Lois rushed to his side. She fished under the fabric for his arm, encountering only skin.   He was _hot_ to the touch. “You can’t lay here, you need to get up.” She started unwrapping him, trying to get him onto the sofa. At least he was wearing pants. He was twitching slightly in his sleep and his breath sounded oddly labored.

 “No, no you can’t, I’m too heavy. You’ll drown.” His face was in shadow, his voice deep with exhaustion.

Lois put her hand on his forehead and was appalled at the temperature. She could feel the heat coming off of him. She couldn’t leave him like this. She’d certainly nursed Jason through enough fevers. 

After a brief search, Lois found the phone behind the sofa on the floor. She called the Planet and left a message with the switchboard that she probably wouldn’t be back until later this afternoon.

Turning back to Clark, she realized his glasses were on the coffee table. That couldn’t be helping – he always claimed he was blind as a bat. Grabbing them on her way back by, Lois tucked one leg into her collar. She’d get them on him in a minute.

Clark may have felt awful, but he didn’t need to spend the day on the floor. Surely she could get him to the sofa, if not the bedroom. 

“C’mon, you’ve got to get up.” Lois struggled to get him upright. He was heavy – almost dead weight.

“No, no. You shouldn’t be here. You have to leave. He’ll come back. He’ll try to hurt you and I won’t be able to stop him.” His voice sounded so odd to Lois. 

 _Oh – his fever is way too high, he’s still dreaming._ “It’s okay, whoever he is will stay away but you’ve got to help me, here.” Clark had rolled over and was up on hands and knees.

“I’m sorry, Lois. I can’t seem to stand up much less get us out of here.”  _Why does his voice sound so strange?_

“Now c’mon, you can do it for me. You can’t stay here. Come on. You can do it. Up.”

“Okay, I’ll try. For you.”

And then he slowly levitated. Not high and not well, but Clark Kent was _flying_. He turned and looked at her with a small smile. “I guess I can after all.” He straightened out and the sunlight shone clearly on his face – _Superman’s_ face. His hair mussed, face damp. He looked just as he had that day in the plane over the ocean.

Lois felt her world flip upside down in that moment. This must be a trick. Or a dream.   That’s it - _she_ was the one at home having a fever dream.

“Clah – ah- _Superman?!_ ”

His head had tipped forward and he was floating about two feet off the floor and rising slowly.   The blankets had fallen away revealing the smooth planes of his back. Her brain completely rejected the obvious truth for a moment. It was too much to process – too huge of a thing to grasp.   Regardless, he hovered unsteadily in front of her, wearing nothing but a pair of blue plaid pajama pants.  Some part of her focused on the task at hand. “You need to lie down on the couch. You’re sick.”  _And I’ve clearly gone insane._

“But Luthor…” He sounded terrified. 

 “Is not here. Luthor can’t hurt you. Or me. I promise. Please – just lie down.”  Lois stared, still in shock as he eased down onto the cushions.

“Okay - if you say so. I don’t feel well.”  He laid his cheek against the pillow and seemed to fall instantly asleep.

Lois pulled the glasses from her shirt. Looking down at them, she tried to disbelieve what she had just seen.  She dropped the glasses on the coffee table like they were hot.  It couldn’t be true. Could NOT.   Lois shot to her feet and headed for the bedroom.   This was impossible. Impossible, absolutely impossible. 

Evidence. Her reporter’s instinct said there must be some corroborating evidence. She ransacked his closet – no suit. No evidence of anything out of the ordinary. She knocked on the walls of the closet, the floor – nothing. Dropping to her knees, Lois looked under the bed. There was a plastic tote. She pulled it out with shaking hands and lifted the lid. And there they were. Four identical Superman suits, folded up, ready to be worn.

Lois threw her hand over her mouth as emotions rolled through her. All the unexplained absences. The sudden world tour to cover the trip to Krypton. Clark conveniently disappearing every time there was a disaster. He must have had help with the deception. All these _years_.  _How could I have been so blind?_  She was Lois Lane – this should have been child’s play for her to uncover.  He left. He didn’t tell her who he was and then he left. Left her inexplicably pregnant and scared and _alone_.  

Her eyes fell on the picture on the dresser - Clark with his parents at his college graduation. He still had a mother in Kansas. Jason had a grandmother he had never met.   Anger finally rose to the surface.  _Why? Didn’t he trust me enough? He obviously slept with me – but he couldn’t tell me we worked together?!_

Before she realized it, she had stormed into the living room to confront him. Except he was still asleep - or unconscious. He had shifted over onto his back. Now that Lois took a moment to truly study his face, of course they were the same person. Lois had spent a lot of time studying Superman’s face over the years, but rarely looked at Clark.

Regardless of this revelation, he was still extraordinarily sick and there really wasn’t a doctor for him to see. Lois gave a silent curse and went to the bathroom for a washcloth. His fever needed to come down. This couldn’t be good for him. She stopped a brief moment - why _was_ he sick? Superman didn’t get sick.

She looked at the pallor of his skin, felt his forehead. He was still burning up. The only time she had seen him with an actual fever was when he had been affected by kryptonite. Lois sighed. “I need you to wake up and talk to me.” She laid the washcloth across his forehead.  “Superman…  um… Clark... um... _Smallville!_ Wake up!”

The blue eyes fluttered open, though they didn’t look particularly alert. “Lois? When did you get here? Why are you yelling?” This was Clark speaking, clearly.

She ignored his questions. “What did you eat yesterday or today that was unusual?”

“I haven’t eaten anything today. There were some cookies at the Planet yesterday that didn’t taste right to me. Everything else I brought from home or bought in the lunch room.”

Lois racked her brain. Cookies, cookies, cookies. There had been a tray of sugar cookies at work next to the coffee pot outside the bullpen. “Those were from the diner down the block. That couldn’t be it. What did you do outside the Planet? Where did you _go_?”

“There was a robbery at a lab and I went to check it out yesterday afternoon…   That was the only place I can think of.” Some part of her noted that his body language had changed completely. Eyes kind of downcast, head tucked, voice softer and slightly higher. He even looked smaller.

“Did you eat or drink anything there?”

“Just coffee.”

Lois went to his satchel and pulled out his notebook. Flipping through it she quickly found the name of the lab and the number for a Dr. Balen.

The phone rang five times before someone picked up. A cheerful female voice answered, “Stein Augmented Engineering, how can I direct your call?” 

“I need to speak with Dr. Balen, please.”

“It may take me a moment to find where he is exactly, but I’ll try to transfer you.”

“Thanks.”

Lois waited, and tried very hard to focus on the problem at hand rather than the problem on the couch.  _Now how do I get this information out of him without raising a huge red flag…._

“This is Robert Balen.”

“Dr. Balen, I have a question for you. My name is Molly and I’m an intern down here at the Planet and I am typing up Mr. Kent’s notes from your meeting yesterday and it says here that you study meteorites, and I can’t quite make out where some of them came from and I want to get this right…   Can you give me an idea of where some of your collection came from? Are there some from Ethiopia?”

“What? No. Most of the meteorites we are working with right now aren’t really meteorites at all, but pieces of rock recovered from the Atlantic after Superman pulled the crystalline structure out of the ocean and sent it out into space. But we didn’t really discuss that at all…”

“Wow – that sounds really interesting. What are you doing with it?”

“We’ve turned many of our samples into dust by this point. Checking for various properties. Can I ask what this has to do with the robbery?” _He’s starting to get suspicious…_

“Just running down some background info. Thanks for your time, sir, sorry to bother you!” Lois hung up quickly and gave a silent curse.

“Chasing a story and you manage to find kryptonite. What luck.” She got up and looked down at his face.   “Any that you managed to ingest should have either come up or passed on through by now – so why are you still sick?    Tell me what hurts.”

He finally looked up at her and answered, “My chest - it hurts to breathe.”

“Then you need to sit up. Lying down is not helping.” She put her hands on his shoulders and helped him struggle upright. She turned with him and wound up kneeling over him, almost straddling his lap. She could feel the heat coming off of him in waves. The palm of his hand found her thigh. She looked down and his face was just below hers. His blue eyes flickered up to focus on her lips. His expression was completely different than a few moments before. Something hidden deep in her memory whispered, _Kal-El._

Superman smiled up at her. “Beautiful Lois – I missed you while I was gone, you know.   You were one of the things that brought me back. Part of me wanted to just give up, stay there in the dark with the remnants of Krypton. But I kept seeing your face.” He reached up and caressed her cheek. “I swear I could hear you some days, calling me. I knew I had to come home.”

Despite everything, Lois felt the old familiar pull.  She had told Richard she’d never loved Superman.  _Liar_.   Instead of giving him the kiss he clearly wanted she shut her eyes and sighed.  “Sshhh. You don’t know what you’re saying.”

His warm, rich voice answered, “No, I do. You just don’t believe me.” 

Butterflies danced in the pit of her stomach.   Her body certainly remembered being this close to him. Somehow Lois found the resolve to push his hand away. “Please, this is not the time – you need to save your strength.”

She sat down beside him and put her ear against his chest. “Breathe for me.” He took in a deep breath and things rattled inside his lungs.   _This_ she understood. Hopefully.  “I think you managed to inhale kryptonite dust. Good job. We need to get that stuff out. Stay.”

She went to the bathroom and turned on the heater and then the hot water in the shower full blast.  This was not going to fun for either of them.

Lois walked back to the living room. “You’re going to have to help me here, because I can’t pick you up.” She stepped back and tugged on his hand, trying to help him to his feet. Suddenly Superman was looming over her, all deep blue eyes and wide shoulders and hard muscled chest.   She shoved her rising libido firmly away and tucked her shoulder into his armpit. “C’mon, into the bathroom.”

It seemed to take forever but she finally had him sitting on the closed toilet with a trashcan between his feet.   Steam had already fogged the mirror and was clinging in sparkling drops in his raven black hair.   She could hear him wheezing. “Okay, now breathe for me. Slow, deep breaths.” Lois prayed this would work – she was not quite sure what the next step would be otherwise. One breath, two, three. On number four, she felt the first tremble across his shoulders as things started breaking loose. “Keep going.”

Suddenly there was an odd hiccupy sound and then he leaned over and began to cough hard. He made an awful noise as the phlegm started coming up. She put her palm flat on his back and rubbed in slow circles between his shoulder blades. “C’mon – it all needs to come out.”   At one point she glanced down, and she could see blood in the garbage can.   Some part of her found the situation hysterical – who knew her experience with Jason’s respiratory problems could come in so handy?

It took a while for it to stop. Once he had managed to sit completely upright and take a normal sounding breath, she opened the door and turned off the shower. His face was flushed. “Up – back on the sofa.” Some part of her could not bear the thought of approaching a bed with him in tow. He moved slowly, letting her guide him wherever she would.

Lois handed him a small glass of orange juice. He looked at it briefly like it was evil, but drank it down regardless after glancing at her face. She made him a nest of pillows and cushions on the sofa so he could recline rather than laying flat. After getting him settled, she opened up all of the blinds in the living room, letting in as much sunlight as possible.

The bright red spots had faded from his cheeks and he looked too pale again, but seemed to be breathing easier. She placed another cool washcloth on his forehead and one under the back of his neck.   “Why are you here?” Clark asked her.

Lois paused, wastebasket in her hand.  “Because you’re sick.”

“I’ve been sick before and I don’t remember you fussing over me like this.” Clark fidgeted with the blankets.

“Just hush and try and get some rest. You’re still weak.” Lois did not want to talk – she had no idea what might come out of her mouth.

He looked like he wanted to argue, but snuggled down into the cushions instead.

She picked the glasses up off the table. Curling up in the chair, she could watch him as he slept and she tried to wrap her mind around the fact that he had been lying to her all these years.   She held the glasses up to the light, looking through the lenses – they were just plain, regular glass set in dark horn-rimmed frames.

_Why didn’t you tell me?_

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~  
the end

thanks for reading

serafine  
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something."  
       - Wesley in The Princess Bride 


End file.
